Poll Everywhere The formative assessment tool Poll Everywhere uses students’ cell phones, tablets, or laptops can be used to respond to question that the teacher poses to them. It is web-based in that the responses show up live on the screen through the Poll Everywhere website. The basic Poll Everywhere plans are free; however, to add additional features for K-12 educators, plans start at $50 per year for features such as grading and attendance, advanced reporting, response moderation, and the ability to embed equations into polls. Poll Everywhere produces the text of responses, a live word cloud, and live bar charts with the percentages for each response. This data can be used to determine how students are understanding the material, and the word cloud is used to display the students’ responses, allowing the teacher to see the responses as they are entered.
Aronin, S., & O'Neal, M. Twenty ways to assess students using technology. Science Scope, 34, 25-31. Retrieved June 2, 2014, from the EBSCO Host database. Poll Everywhere. (n.d.). Poll Everywhere. Retrieved June 7, 2014, from http://www.polleverywhere.com/
Blogs
Blogs are a great formative assessment. They can be used as a formative assessment when every student creates a daily blog in a Google drive or any other online storage space (Joshi 1). The students will write a blog that every student can see including the teacher. This will allow students to see what students are thinking about for each concept and or ask questions about things they may not have understood in the class periods prior (Joshi 2). This is a web based example that doesn't cost, but does require an email address to access either the Google drive or other online storage space. The blog produces a daily journal. On the other hand, it creates a place where students can collaborate, reteach to other students, ask questions, and discuss the material and homework with peers who are having the same successes and struggles and with a teacher. The ultimate goal of teaching is that students take ownership of their learning and figure out how to find the knowledge on their own. In the same manner, the teacher reading the blog can figure out quickly where their class is at with given concepts and use that to drive discussions and to differentiate instruction for various members. For instance, if a few students didn't figure out the last concept then the teacher will see that in their blog posts and can change instruction for them on the next class period to help them catch up and understand the desired concepts. Another way the blogs can be used is just in a word document. These word documents can be emailed to the teacher on a weekly bases which helps the teacher a little less, but it doesn't have to be web based it can just be computer based. It still doesn't require a cost, and it still produces a blog that the teacher can read in this situation and not the whole class. The good part about this is that students will summarize and rethink about the previous days concepts and trying to rationalize what they are learning for the teacher (Joshi 3). Again in the same way, reading the blogs will help the teacher drive the lessons along with differentiate instruction for the students to help them better understand the material.
Joshi, M., & Babacan, A. (2012). Developing a Framework for the Effective Use of Blogs in Formative Assessment.Turkish Online Journal Of Distance Education, 13(3), 21-32.
The formative assessment tool Poll Everywhere uses students’ cell phones, tablets, or laptops can be used to respond to question that the teacher poses to them. It is web-based in that the responses show up live on the screen through the Poll Everywhere website. The basic Poll Everywhere plans are free; however, to add additional features for K-12 educators, plans start at $50 per year for features such as grading and attendance, advanced reporting, response moderation, and the ability to embed equations into polls. Poll Everywhere produces the text of responses, a live word cloud, and live bar charts with the percentages for each response. This data can be used to determine how students are understanding the material, and the word cloud is used to display the students’ responses, allowing the teacher to see the responses as they are entered.
Aronin, S., & O'Neal, M. Twenty ways to assess students using technology. Science Scope, 34, 25-31. Retrieved June 2, 2014, from the EBSCO Host database.
Poll Everywhere. (n.d.). Poll Everywhere. Retrieved June 7, 2014, from http://www.polleverywhere.com/
Blogs
Blogs are a great formative assessment. They can be used as a formative assessment when every student creates a daily blog in a Google drive or any other online storage space (Joshi 1). The students will write a blog that every student can see including the teacher. This will allow students to see what students are thinking about for each concept and or ask questions about things they may not have understood in the class periods prior (Joshi 2). This is a web based example that doesn't cost, but does require an email address to access either the Google drive or other online storage space. The blog produces a daily journal. On the other hand, it creates a place where students can collaborate, reteach to other students, ask questions, and discuss the material and homework with peers who are having the same successes and struggles and with a teacher. The ultimate goal of teaching is that students take ownership of their learning and figure out how to find the knowledge on their own. In the same manner, the teacher reading the blog can figure out quickly where their class is at with given concepts and use that to drive discussions and to differentiate instruction for various members. For instance, if a few students didn't figure out the last concept then the teacher will see that in their blog posts and can change instruction for them on the next class period to help them catch up and understand the desired concepts. Another way the blogs can be used is just in a word document. These word documents can be emailed to the teacher on a weekly bases which helps the teacher a little less, but it doesn't have to be web based it can just be computer based. It still doesn't require a cost, and it still produces a blog that the teacher can read in this situation and not the whole class. The good part about this is that students will summarize and rethink about the previous days concepts and trying to rationalize what they are learning for the teacher (Joshi 3). Again in the same way, reading the blogs will help the teacher drive the lessons along with differentiate instruction for the students to help them better understand the material.
Joshi, M., & Babacan, A. (2012). Developing a Framework for the Effective Use of Blogs in Formative Assessment. Turkish Online Journal Of Distance Education, 13(3), 21-32.